Facial recognition at Purdue University's airport - 2003-2008

Post September 11, 2001, there has been an increased focus by the airline industry and governments to evaluate various technologies associated with security and identification. Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) technologies have been used extensively in airports and the aviation industry for a number of years prior to September 11, in applications ranging from bar coded baggage tags to magnetic stripes on boarding cards. Although previously used in limited airport applications, there is now a renewed focus on another branch of automatic identification technology, namely biometrics. This paper presents a structured methodology for developing a testing protocol for face recognition at the Student Flight Operations Center at the Purdue University airport which will assess the performance of a commercially available off-the-shelf product over a five year period.